


Locked Out

by hallow777



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Balcony AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4443296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallow777/pseuds/hallow777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I locked myself out of my apartment so I have to climb out your window and onto my balcony” AU</p>
<p>Laura just can not seem to remember to grab her keys before she leaves her apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“No, dad, really. I’m fine. I’ve got this under control. I can live on my own, I promise,” Laura spoke into the phone that was cradled between her ear and her shoulder, trying to switch the grocery bags she had in her hand around so she could reach into her bag for her keys to unlock the door.

“I’m just worried about you, honey. What if you lock yourself out of your apartment? What would you do? You don’t leave a spare key outside, at least you better not. I taught you better than that so you would have to wait around for someone to come unlock it for you. I really wish you hadn’t moved so far away so that I could run a spare key over for you if you needed it.”

“Dad, seriously. It’s okay. I’m not going to lock myself out of my apartment or anything like that. You worry too much. My keys are,” Laura paused for just a second, as her hand continually groped around inside of her bag.

_They are apparently right inside of my locked apartment. Oh god, think Hollis think!_

“Here. They are right here so I’m going to go into my apartment now, okay dad? Stop worrying I am fine but I need to go put up all these groceries so I’ll talk to you later, okay? Bye!” Laura closed her phone and then dropped it into her bag, checking one more time to check if her keys had magically appeared in there but they hadn’t.

Now what in the world was she going to do? Sure she managed to lock herself out of her childhood home many times but she had thought that having the responsibility of having her own apartment she would change her bad habit of walking out without her keys. Apparently not.

She was not going to give her dad the satisfaction of knowing he was right though, he would bug her about moving away from home more than he already does now.

Laura sat the bags of groceries she was still hanging on to down on the floor in front of her door and was going to go downstairs and see if the manager or maintenance guy for the building was in and maybe they could let her in without her having to call a locksmith but as she turned away, she started hearing music blasting from her neighbor’s apartment.

Laura liked to think that she was a friendly person and had made friends with most people on her floor except for this particular neighbor. She never seemed to come out while the sun was up so Laura had only met her two or three times and Carmilla, whose name she had found out from Perry down the hall, hadn’t bothered to talk to her either of those times.

The most she knew about her was that she loved to blast music at the oddest times and that her balcony was right next to Laura’s.

_That’s it!_

Before Laura really thought this through too much she was banging loudly on Carmilla’s door, waiting impatiently for the music to turn off and for her to throw open the door.

Carmilla was most definitely not a morning person so when someone started knocking on her door she threw it open and glared at them, only vaguely realizing it was her very cheerful next door neighbor.

“What the frilly hell do you want? It’s early.”

“U-Uh,” Laura suddenly lost the ability to speak as she realized that her neighbor had answered the door without any pants on, “sorry, but it’s really not that early its almost noon, you know.”

“Whatever. Is there a point to this?” Carmilla asked, looking at Laura pointedly.

“Okay so this is going to sound a little odd but I kind of locked myself out of my apartment and was wondering if I could use your balcony to hop over to mine? I’m pretty sure my balcony door isn’t locked so I can get in that way. Please?”

_She can’t be serious,_ Carmilla thought but as she just stood there looking at her, Laura didn’t budge.

“Ugh, fine. Whatever. Just go so I can get back to sleep,” she said as she opened the door wider and then turned around so Laura could follow her inside.

“Thank you! But you were blasting music so how could you have been sleeping?”

“God, you just don’t shut up, do you cupcake? It helps drown out other noises, okay?”

Laura finally got the hint that maybe the other girl didn’t want to talk so she just settled for following her to the back of the apartment silently, taking in the apartment that had the same layout as hers but was completely different when it came to how it was decorated.

Laura had brought a lot of things from home, as well as buying a few new things for herself so her apartment was rather homey and cozy while her neighbor’s apartment was a weird mix of modern and old and a lot of black. The couch, for instance, was a nice modern looking black leather couch but the coffee table in front of it was a rich dark wood table that she knew had to be old. They didn’t make things like that anymore.

It was an odd mix but it worked well together, Laura had to admit but her inspection of the apartment ended abruptly as Carmilla reached the door that led out onto the balcony and opened it, making an irritated “after you” gesture towards her.

“Thank you, you really saved me and you don’t even know it,” Laura walked out onto the balcony and carefully climbed over the railing and onto her balcony. They were on the third floor so it was a little high up but the balconies had just a few inches of space between them so Laura didn’t worry about falling.

She quickly went and pushed on her balcony door, giving a little happy squeal as she found out it was unlocked before turning back to the other balcony.

She wanted to thank the girl one more time but she had already retreated back inside so Laura just shrugged and went inside her apartment and then back out the front door to grab her groceries, barely noticing that her keys were, indeed, right by the door where she had left them that morning.

* * *

“You have got to be shitting me, this is the third time!” Carmilla groaned as she swept her hand through her hair after opening the door to find a sheepish Laura on the other side.

“I’m sorry! I even got a huge keychain so I wouldn’t forget about it but I still do.”

“I swear to god one of these days I’m just not going to answer the door,” Carmilla grumbled as she walked back to her couch before flopping down on it, “I think you know the way to the balcony by now. Help yourself.”

“Thanks, I really do appreciate this,” Laura walked through the apartment she was getting familiar with and headed out the balcony and onto her own without anything else being said.

She really was going to have to figure out a way to stop locking herself out.

* * *

“Don’t you dare light that up in my apartment Willy boy. You know I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, go to the balcony at least,” Carmilla grabbed her brother by the shoulders and spun him around before pushing him out the door to the balcony and following after him.

“You hate it and yet you are still out here with me, did you really miss me that much?” Will flicked his lighter and lit the end of his cigarette before inhaling deeply.

“Yeah right, I just want to find out what ‘mommy dearest’ is planning next for me. I know she sent you to tell me something so out with it while I’m still in a decent mood.”

“Alright, you got me. She wants you to be there for her birthday party next week-”

“Absolutely not going to happen.”

“-and said that if you happened to refuse that I was supposed to make you agree by whatever means necessary,” Will grinned at her and his eyes cut to the balcony door a split second before he crushed his cigarette on the railing and dashed inside, locking the door behind him.

“William! You little shit! Open this door right now,” she pounded on the door with all her strength but he just closed the curtains on her and then she could hear her TV being switched on and the volume turned up super high.

She had missed her younger brother after moving out of her mother’s house, but she’d forgotten how much of a momma’s boy he really was until he pulled something like this.

It didn’t matter though, she would get her revenge one way or another.

Until then though, she was apparently going to have to make herself comfortable out here on her very small balcony.

In the middle of winter…

In a tank top and shorts…

He would pay for this dearly.

Carmilla huffed and sat down with her back to the right side of the railing so that she would have room to stretch her legs out but as soon as she did, her eyes caught sight of the balcony that was basically connected to hers and got an idea.

Maybe it was time the little cupcake from next door paid her back for all the times she’d locked herself out.

Carmilla stood back up and banged on her balcony door one more time just to see if maybe Will would think better of his choices but when he didn’t answer she turned and gracefully climbed over the balcony railing and onto Laura’s.

The door was, of course, unlocked so that Laura could get in if she needed too but since the curtains were drawn she knocked hesitantly against the door, not wanting to walk in and scare Laura although it would certainly be funny.

After a few minutes though, a gust of wind whipped past her, soaking down into her skin and she decided it didn’t matter, she was going in anyway.

“Cupcake? You here?” that got no response so she tried calling the girl’s actual name but still nothing. A quick look through the apartment- she was cold and irritated, she didn’t care about boundaries right now- revealed that Laura wasn’t actually there.

And since she didn’t have her keys to get into her own apartment, it looked like she was going to hang out in Laura’s nice warm cozy living room for a while.

* * *

Despite her earlier look through the apartment, she didn’t feel like invading the girl’s privacy any more than she already did so she kept herself in the living room, absentmindedly watching the TV while wrapped up in a blanket that was on the couch.

She didn’t know how long she had been there but something finally broke through her dazed state but she didn’t know what it was.

And then she heard it again. A faint knocking in a pattern she had, unfortunately, grown used to.

A quick look over at the table next to the door confirmed her suspicions. There were Laura’s keys sitting right on the table.

With a groan, Carmilla pulled herself off of the couch and went to the door. She unlocked it and pulled it open, sticking her head out to the left to see Laura looking frustrated as she continued knocking on Carmilla’s door.

“Yeah, I’m not exactly home, cutie.”

Hearing the familiar voice coming from a not so familiar direction caused Laura to jump.

“Wha-?” was all Laura got out before she left Carmilla’s door and headed into her own apartment, glancing suspiciously at Carmilla, “I know you are getting tired of me locking myself out, but don’t you think waiting for me in my own apartment is a bit extreme?”

“It’s not… It’s not like that. I-” Carmilla was cut off as Will started shouting her name next door. He must have looked outside and realized she wasn’t outside anymore.

Laura’s eyes grew wide, “oh my god, is someone after you? Are you being stalked? Are they trying to hurt you? Oh my god we’ve got to do something!”

“Whoa, chill, it’s not like that. It’s just my brother.”

“That makes it worse! Look, my dad knows people. I can call him and we can get your brother arrested or whatever it takes to get him to leave you alone. You shouldn’t have to run away and hide from anyone. Let me help you,” Laura took out her phone and was about to hit the speed dial number for her dad when her phone was snatched out of her hands.

“Will you just stop and listen to me? He’s yelling for me because he locked me out on the balcony earlier and probably finally realized I’m not still out there. That’s why I’m in your place. It was cold outside.”

Laura relaxed a little but still didn’t look convinced, “why would he lock you outside?”

“So I would agree to go to my mom’s birthday party.”

“I get the feeling your family is weird but if you say so…”

“You have no idea.”

.Just then a frantic knocking started happening on the other side of Laura’s door and she just looked at Carmilla, “I think that’s for you.”

“If you really want to help me you can let me hide out here for a little while longer and tell him I am not here. He needs to suffer for a while longer.”

Laura nodded and then started towards the door as Carmilla took off and hid behind the kitchen counter so that she would be out of sight but could still hear what was going on. She wanted him to freak out for a while longer but he could be a dick when he wanted to be and she didn’t want him harassing Laura.

“Uh, can I help you?” Laura said as she opened the door and looked at the guy on the other side.

“Is my sister with you?”

“Why would your sister be here? I don’t even know who your sister is.”

“Carmilla. From next door?” Will was starting to fidget now, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Sorry, I don’t really know my neighbors very well. What makes you think she’s here?”

“Uh well, I think she might have climbed onto your balcony from hers.”

“Are you… feeling okay?” Laura tilted her head and looked up at him with concern for the full effect.

“Right, sorry it was silly. I’ll just… go now.”

Once the door was shut and locked, Laura turned around with a grin on her face, looking towards Carmilla who came out from behind the counter.

“That was perfect. Thank you.”

“It was no problem. I mean, you are always letting me into your apartment so I’m actually happy I can pay you back in some way. How long do you plan on keeping this up though?”

Carmilla watched Laura move over to the couch as a frown spread across her face, “I’m not sure. I can go somewhere else though and get out of your way.”

“Oh no, no. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You can stay as long as you’d like.. I was mostly just asking because I was thinking about ordering pizza if you were hungry too?”

“Well, in that case…”


	2. Chapter 2

When Laura stepped out of the elevator and into the hallway of the third floor, she noticed Lafontaine sitting by her door.

“Hey Laf, is something the matter?” she asked as she approached her friend.

“Uh sort of, I left my keys at Perry’s place last night and she isn’t going to be home for another couple hours. My spare keys are in a pocket of that bag I let you borrow the other day, I think.”

“Oh, you weren’t waiting long, were you? You could have called me, I was just working on an article at work, I could have run back by here,” Laura said as she stepped up next to her door and started searching through her bag for her keys.

“It’s okay I just got back a few minutes ago, it’s no big deal,” they shrugged, starting to get slightly worried when Laura still hadn’t found her keys.

“Um.”

“Oh no, please don’t tell me your locked yourself out too? Of all days? I have so got to use the facilities! A double lock out, Perry is never going to let us live this down.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Don’t worry, just hang tight for a second, yeah?”

Laura moved over the the door that was almost as familiar as hers at this point and went to knock but Lafontaine grabbed her hand at the last minute.

“Laura! Are you crazy! Do you know who lives here? Danny from the fourth floor is pretty sure she’s a legitimate vampire and no one has ever seen her up this early, she will kill you and then me too.”

Laura gave them a weird look, “it’s like four in the afternoon. Relax, she’s really not that bad.”

She went ahead and knocked on the door loudly and Lafontaine arched an eyebrow at their friend, “so what, does ms. dark and scary have a spare key for you? Is there something you need to tell me about?”

“That…,” Laura’s eyes went wide, causing Lafontaine to be even more confused, “is a really good idea actually. The key thing.”

Before Lafontaine could say anything, the door in front of them swung open and Carmilla scowled at them, glaring particularly hard at the red head.

“What do you want?”

“Laf locked themselves out and their spare keys are in my apartment and I kinda locked myself out too,” Laura said with a shrug, not at all bothered by the glare she was getting from the grumpy girl.

A look of absolute horror, crossed the dark haired girl’s face as she spoke, “holy shit, its contagious. I’m going to be next and then who is going to let you into your apartment every other day?”

“Oh hush, it’s like twice a week at the most. Plus, you never leave your house so how would you lock yourself out?”

Carmilla shrugged and moved back from the door, letting Lafontaine follow Laura inside as she followed the very familiar path to the balcony. She gestured to Laf to head outside and over to the other balcony and the redhead was finally starting to catch on.

Lafontaine climbed over the railing rather ungracefully but they made it regardless while Laura stuck her head back inside and thanked Carmilla with a smile on her face before following Lafontaine.

“So,” Lafontaine started as soon as Laura shut the balcony door behind her, “what’s all that about?”

“It’s nothing. Just that I really suck at remembering to grab my keys and our balconies are right next to each other.”

“Whatever you say, Hollis, whatever you say.”

* * *

Laura loved her job, she really did, she loved writing articles for the paper even if it wasn’t always things she wanted to write about but what she did not love was the demanding boss she had. He was always so particular about things that she ended up spending more time editing and changing things to try and make him happy than she did actually writing the article. She knew that realistically she wouldn’t just get to write things when she got this job and that editing would be a bit part of it but this guy liked to take things to the extreme.

By the time she stepped out of the elevator on her floor, she was exhausted and irritated and just wanted to go to curl up in her bed and sleep until she had to get up and do the same thing tomorrow. Her stomach, however, had other plans and reminded her she hadn’t eaten since this morning but at this point she was sure once she got near her bed, her exhaustion would win.

Except, it looked like she was going to have to do some balcony hopping first, seeing as her keys were once again, not in her purse.

Laura knocked on Carmilla’s door and waited but although she could hear some movement happening in there, no one had answered the door yet.

So she knocked again and got a muffled response of, “cool it, you are going to melt your frosting off, cupcake. Give me a minute.”

After another few seconds, Carmilla finally opened the door with a red stains all over her shirt and Laura was immediately reminded of what Lafontaine had said before, “holy hufflepuff, you are a vampire!”

“Oh for the love of…” Carmilla spun around and headed back into the kitchen area, leaving a too curious for her own good Laura to follow her. As soon as she stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind her, the smell of food hit her and boy did it smell amazing.

“Not that I need to explain myself to you, but it’s a red sauce. I had it up too high and it started popping all over the place when you knocked on the door so I was busy.”

“You cook?”

Carmilla had gone to stir the sauce again but looked back over her shoulder at Laura with a confused look on her face, “do you not?”

“Uh, sorry I guess that was kind of a weird question, huh? I can cook some but I’ve never made anything that smells this good. You definitely can’t be a vampire if you plan on eating all the garlic I can smell in that too,” Laura smiled brightly at the other girl who smirked back at her before adding even more garlic to the sauce.

“Right, I should go. Sorry for bothering you again and thanks for letting me use your balcony,” Laura turned and started walking through the living room to the balcony door, trying to ignore the fact that her stomach had started growling halfway through her sentence.

Carmilla stopped stirring the sauce for a second and closed her eyes, knowing that she was probably going to regret what she was about to do but she did it anyway.

She wasn’t going to let herself think about why she was really doing it either.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

Laura whipped around so fast she nearly toppled over, “I would love to, but why?”

Carmilla just shrugged, her back still to Laura, “to pay you back for letting me stay at your place when my brother was being an ass a couple weeks ago. Plus, knowing you, you are just going to go back and eat cookies for dinner. I saw the sheer amount of cookies and sweets in your kitchen, don’t even try to deny it.”

It was Laura’s turn to shrug as she left her bag by the balcony door and went back over to the kitchen where Carmilla was now setting out plates and utensils on the part of the kitchen counter where a couple of barstools were sitting.

Other than to thank her a few times and to compliment her cooking, dinner passed quietly both enjoying the company, though one would never admit it, until a thought occurred to Laura.

“You know, if you keep this up, people might think we are friends and I don’t know how well that’s going to go with everyone thinking you are this dark mysterious person,” Carmilla had a small moment of dread thinking that Laura was telling her she couldn’t be friends with someone like that, but then Laura continued, “aren’t you afraid this is going to ruin your reputation?”

“I don’t think anyone can stay ‘dark and mysterious’ around you for long. You are too bright and nosey.”

“I am not ‘nosey’, I am simply inquisitive.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, cutie.”

Laura tried half heartedly to pry into Carmilla’s life and they both had a good laugh when Carmilla suggested it was time to go so that Laura couldn’t get any details out of her and soon Laura was back in her own apartment and climbing into bed.

She was out as soon as her head hit the pillow, having forgotten how exhausted she really was when she was eating dinner with Carmilla.


	3. Chapter 3

Today was a very important day for her, so Laura tried very, very hard to remember her keys.

Today was the anniversary of her mother’s death and even though it had been well over ten years by now, her and her father always made sure to spend it together so he was going to drive in and meet her at work today and then when she was done, they were going to head back to her apartment.

He still had issues with her living on her own, even though it had been about six months now since she moved into her own place, so she knew he would flip if he ever found out just how often she got herself locked out.

She had a feeling he wouldn’t enjoy the fact that she regularly used her neighbor’s balcony to climb over even though they were on the third floor either.

So she absolutely could not forget her keys in her apartment today.

Last night she put sticky notes all over the place so that she would see them during her morning routine and would continually think about her keys and when she made it out the door with her keys in her hand, she was proud of herself for actually remembering them.

* * *

That proud feeling lasted until she and her father got back to her apartment later that evening and she realized that while she had made it out of her apartment with her keys that morning, she’d apparently managed to leave them at work instead.

“Is something wrong, pumpkin?” her father asked when she took just a few seconds longer than normal to produce her keys. He was always the observant one.

_Now how are you going to get yourself out of this one, Hollis? Spare key! Right! If I can just..._

“Huh? Oh no, it’s nothing I just… I borrowed something from my neighbor yesterday and I really should return it real quick,” she said, already stepping towards Carmilla’s door after fishing out a flashdrive out of her purse. It was actually her work one but he didn’t know that.

She thought maybe he would question why she had to do it at this precise moment but his curiosity about her neighbors won out instead.

She was just flying by the seat of her pants here, she didn’t even know if she could pull this off or not but she was going to try.

The door swung open after a few knocks and Carmilla leaned against the door once she noticed that Laura wasn’t alone, “hey cupcake, did you for-”

She was cut off by a panicked Laura who was glancing over at her father from the corner of her eye, “hey yeah, so um, I brought your flash drive back, thanks for letting me borrow it. You really saved me yesterday. Actually, you know, I don’t think I got everything off there do you think I could use your computer real quick to check? It will just take a second, I promise.”

Laura was begging her with her eyes to go along with it and she found she couldn’t resist the girl, Carmilla was pretty sure she knew what was going on, for the most part, so she agreed and let the girl in but made sure to step back into the doorway so the man couldn’t follow her.

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” he stuck his hand out and she shook it, “I’m Jack Hollis, Laura’s father. And you are?”

“Carmilla.”

“So Carmilla, what do you do?”

_Oh yes, he was definitely related to Laura._

* * *

Laura could feel her father watching her over the top of Carmilla’s head- he had a good foot of height more than both of them- so she made a show of going over to where the computer was and actually going so far as to plug in the flash drive. She didn’t know how she was going to get away with doing this with him watching her but as soon as she thought that, Carmilla shifted a little bit and the door closed a little more behind her, just enough to obscure her father’s vision.

Laura briefly wondered if Carmilla could read minds because that was almost scary how that worked out but that didn’t matter right now, she had a mission to accomplish.

She quickly darted out the balcony doors and over to her own balcony, literally going flying into her living room as her foot got caught but she didn’t let that stop her. She quickly picked herself up and ran over to the table by the door and started rummaging through the drawers. It took a little bit longer than she would have liked but she eventually dug up her spare set of keys.

In record time she was back over the railing and back into Carmilla’s apartment, taking a second to calm her breathing and rapid heart beat before moving back to the front door where her father and Carmilla were talking animatedly to each other. It was definitely a sight to behold.

“Sorry it took so long, silly me, I did leave stuff on it. It’s all good now, thanks.”

She moved past Carmilla who looked at her a little oddly so she held up the hand with the spare set of keys and Carmilla smirked at her a little bit before turning back to Laura’s father, “well, it was nice meeting you and do get back to me with those details and we will see what we can work out, okay?”

“Sure thing. I’ll get started on that when I get back home and get that to you sometime next week probably. I need to see what all we would really need.”

“No need to rush. You two have a good night,” Carmilla said before giving them a little wave, stepping back into her apartment and shutting the door softly.

Laura just looked at her father questioningly, “what was all that about?”

“She’s going to help me with the database for the store, why didn’t you tell me you knew someone who did that kind of stuff? We could have had this going a long time ago.”

“Uh, sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I guess,” she said as she finally opened her own door and let them both into her own apartment.

“She’s a nice girl, I’m glad you have someone like that as your neighbor.”

Thankfully, she had let him go into the apartment ahead of her so he didn’t see the way her jaw dropped when he said that. Her father approved of Carmilla? Carmilla the dark and broody neighbor passed the “Jack Hollis” test? After only what, five minutes, if that?

She’d been dating her ex for two years before he’d finally given in and approved of her- then they’d ended up splitting about six weeks later and he went on and on about how he should never have approved of her.

Not that she thought about Carmilla as her girlfriend or even wanted that to happen. Nope, no way. It was just that that was the last person he had actually approved of.

She did have to admit though, Carmilla did have a certain charm about her.

“Me too, dad. Me too.”

* * *

It was nearing eleven at night and while normally Laura would be asleep in her bed by now, she’d currently given up her bed to her dad for the night. He’d protested of course, saying he could take the couch but she’d taken one look at him attempting to lay on her couch, his body dwarfing the thing, and she’d put her foot down and sent him to her room.

So now she was the one lying on her couch tonight and it wasn’t that it was uncomfortable or anything, it was just odd and she couldn’t fall asleep.

She thought the fact she couldn’t sleep might have something to do with the music she could hear coming from Carmilla’s apartment. This wasn’t anything new, the woman tended to play music both when she was trying to sleep and when she was trying to stay awake, how that actually worked, Laura would never know.

Normally, Laura didn’t hear it when she was asleep in her room though.

After lying there for a little while longer, Laura was just about to fall asleep when a thought suddenly occurred to her, causing her to immediately sit up.

_The flash drive!_

Of course she’d left it in Carmilla’s computer. Of course she did. And of course she needed that for work in the morning.

With a groan, Laura pulled herself off of the couch and started towards the front door but then thought better of it. It was closer to midnight now and she wasn’t even sure if Carmilla would answer her door at midnight, Laura knew she most likely wouldn’t if it was her door being knocked on.

So she had the brilliant idea of going across the balcony and knocking on the balcony door, at least this way she would know it was her, right? Who else would be on her balcony?

Laura carefully slipped out onto her balcony, careful not to make any noise while opening and shutting the door, she definitely didn’t want to wake her dad up, then climbed over to Carmilla’s balcony.

Then she paused before she knocked on the door. It was really late and she didn’t want to scare the woman even though she was pretty sure she was still up. There was a subtle difference in the music she listened to when she was trying to sleep and music she listened to when she was trying to stay awake and this was definitely awake music.

But really, she could just go over in the morning before work or maybe just wait until her dad left so she could just go over and ask for it.

Then again, the time she was leaving for work was probably about the time Carmilla would be sleeping so maybe not. She understood why Danny thought her neighbor was a vampire now, she had the sleep schedule of one.

Not to mention the apparent aversion to sunlight and fresh air.  
“You know, you just standing out here is kind of creepy, cutie.”

Laura had been worried about scaring Carmilla, but it turns out that it happened the other way around when Carmilla opened the door while Laura was pacing back and forth, weighing her options.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to I just. Um well my dad was watching me earlier and I kind of left my flash drive in your computer and I do actually need that for work…”

Carmilla just shook her head at the girl, not even bothering to hide her smile as she moved back to let the girl in.

“Why did you even plug it in in the first place?”

“He was watching me and I panicked, okay?” Laura followed Carmilla over to where her desk was and was surprised to see the state it was in, “whoa, what happened here? Did a tornado hit?”

The desk was in such a mess compared to how it had been earlier today. Earlier it looked like she barely ever used it, now it was very well used with empty cups and plates and candy wrappers all over it. Apparently, Laura wasn’t the only one with a sweet tooth.

“I was working,” Carmilla shrugged and pushed aside an almost empty bag of chips so that she could pull out the flash drive without knocking something over.

“Oh really?” this was the first time Laura had ever heard the woman mention anything about working, “what kind of work do you do?”

Carmilla raised an eyebrow at her as she handed Laura the flash drive, “weren’t you just trying to convince me the other day that you weren’t nosey?”

“I’m not! It’s just something you normally know about your friends, right? I mean, you know what I do, don’t you?”

“Actually, no. I don’t.”

Laura grinned, “well then, if you tell me what you do, I’ll tell you what I do.”

“That would imply that I actually wanted to know, cupcake.”

It came out harsher than she intended it too, she was tired and frustrated with work but she immediately felt guilty when Laura’s face fell and she turned to head back out the balcony.

“Oh right, sorry. I’ll just… go now. It’s late.”

“I do freelance work mostly. Anything involving computer code, I do it. Website design, software design. The works.”

Laura had just reached the balcony door but she spun back around to face Carmilla with a smile when she realized what she said, “so that’s what my dad was talking about. You are going to make a database for his store?”

“Yeah, we had to have something to talk about while you were sneaking over to your place. What’s the deal with that anyway? Couldn’t admit to your dad that you can’t seem to remember your keys ever?”

“No way, he would make me move back home if I did. He’s so paranoid and already complains about me living on my own so far away from him. At the very least, I would never hear the end of it. So yeah, thanks for that. I’m just glad it worked.”

Carmilla just hummed an agreement at her and looked at her desk with a sigh. Laura knew she really should let the woman get back to work but she was still curious and Carmilla seemed to actually be in a forthcoming mood tonight, “so do you like it then? The work that you do?”

“What are you, a reporter? You ask enough questions to be one.”

“Sort of. I’m a writer for the paper, I really would like to be some kind of report though, getting all the breaking news stories and such. Right now I’m just doing little articles and things but one day I’m going to find a big story.”

“You’d certainly be good at it,” Carmilla said but Laura just stood their staring expectantly at her so she had to answer the girl’s questions, “fine. Yes, I do like it. Most of the time. Right now, I don’t though.”

“Why not?”

“There is something wrong with my code for this project and I just can’t figure it out.”

“Oh well, I wish there was something I could do to help but I’m probably hindering you now more than anything so I’ll just get out of your hair and let you go back to work. Thanks for dealing with my dad and for letting me get my flash drive back.”

Carmilla looked from Laura who was heading out the door again and then back over to the computer where a tiny little never used rubber duck caught her eye, “hey.”

“Yeah?” Laura called back, glancing over her shoulder at Carmilla.

“Maybe you can help. Have you ever heard of rubber duck debugging?”

“No, sorry. I really don’t know much about programming or coding.”

Carmilla gestured for Laura to come back into the living room and pulled up another chair to the desk so that Laura could join her as she sat down.

“Basically, its where you explain to a rubber duck how your code works and while explaining it, you usually find out what’s wrong but I’ve always felt too ridiculous talking to an inanimate object to do it.”

Laura caught on quickly, “so you want me to be your rubber duck?”

“Basically.”

Laura agreed and Carmilla started explaining the code to her and though Laura had absolutely no idea what the woman was talking about, she was happy to help her out. It was super late and she was definitely going to regret this in the morning but she was not going to miss a chance to spend time with her new friend.

It took a couple hours but it finally worked so after Carmilla figured out what was wrong and got involved in fixing it, Laura excused herself and went back to her own apartment to crash on the couch. This time, it didn’t take Laura long to drift off to sleep, her mind filled with the image of how adorable Carmilla looked with a pen dangling from her mouth and face scrunched in concentration as she worked.


	4. Chapter 4

Carmilla groaned loudly and turned over to slap at her phone, trying to get it to shut up. She had stayed up all night last night working on another project and only finally gotten to sleep at about noon so she was absolutely not ready to be awake and dealing with whoever was calling her right now. She’d already had to roll out of bed once to let Laura use her balcony and that was enough social interaction for her for the day but whoever it was on the other end of the phone was not stopping.

It was her brother. Of course it was. Who else would be so annoying? She thought about just ignoring it but he rarely called her.

“What the fuck do you want Will? There’s this thing called sleep, you should try it.”

He just chuckled, “sorry, Kitty, most people don’t sleep at five in the afternoon. Don’t you want to know why I decided to call you?”

“No.”

“You’re going to regret that…”

There was silence on both ends for a minute before Carmilla finally gave in, “fine, what is it?”

“I just thought you might want to know that mother is on her way to your apartment as we speak. She claimed she wanted to spend some time with her darling daughter.”

“Please tell me you are joking.”

“No can do. Have fun!”

He hung up with a laugh and she let the phone drop to the mattress and let out another loud groan, she absolutely did not need this right now.

Her mother was… her mother and her mother got what she wanted always, no matter how many people she stepped on to get it. She hadn’t ever been abusive in anyway but she was very insistent and liked things done just a certain way, something that Carmilla had never been a fan of.

Lilita Morgan- she’d never taken her husband’s name when they married- was best handled in small doses, preferably in public spaces.

So when Carmilla heard a brief but stern knock at the door, she panicked, grabbed her phone and purse that was on her night stand and rushed into the living room to grab the flash drive her recent project was saved to.

By the time a key slid into the lock on her door, the curtains on her balcony door were settling back into place after having been roughly shoved aside in her haste.

* * *

Considering that it was just after five pm on a Friday night and she had only been home for about an hour, there wasn’t much that Laura was really expecting.

She most certainly wasn’t expecting a wild eyed Carmilla to dash in from her balcony pantless and with the most impressive bed hair.

Laura couldn’t help it, growing up with a super over protective dad who was friends with the entire police force in their small town had caused her to be rather paranoid, “oh my god are you okay? Is someone after you? In, in! Shut the door pull the curtain, did they see you? I’ve got a giant can of bear spray we can hit them with if they come over here. I’ll go get it.”

Laura took off into her bedroom to get the can of bear spray while Carmilla stood in the middle of the girl’s living room, slightly confused by the jumble of words that just came out of Laura’s mouth.

She was not awake enough for this yet.

The smaller girl came back just a few seconds later brandishing a very large can of bear spray, her mouth already working overtime again, this time apparently making an escape plan for Carmilla to get out of town easily.

So Carmilla did the only thing she could think to do, she walked forward and pulled the girl by her hand until they were close enough to be touching.

Then she put her hand over Laura’s mouth to get her to be quiet.

“Shhhhh, if you keep on like that she’s going to hear you from over there.”

Laura’s eyes went wide and Carmilla lowered her hand.

Of course, Laura took the opportunity to speak again, but this time in a lower voice, “she?”

“My mother,” Carmilla’s nose scrunched up, in a way that Laura found cute, before she moved over and plopped down on the couch, making herself comfy.

“So first your brother locks you outside and now you are hiding from your mom?”

“He locked me outside because of her, she’s the root of all my problems.”

Faintly they could hear a woman calling out Carmilla’s name in the next apartment.

“So what, you let her in then balcony hopped over here?” Laura said taking a seat on the other side of the couch now that she was pretty sure her friend’s life wasn’t in danger. The bear spray stood at the ready on the coffee table just in case though.

“No, I got a call from my brother informing me that our mother was on the way and when I heard a knock at the door I panicked, okay? I do not want to deal with her right now. Or ever, really.”

“She can’t be that bad,” Laura said and Carmilla just gave her a look then sighed. She had heard about how Laura’s mother had passed away when she was younger so she knew it probably seemed weird to Laura that she didn’t want to be around her mother while she knew the smaller woman would give anything to see her own mother again.

“She’s just… too much sometimes, you know? I need time to prepare which generally includes sleeping for more than a few hours after pulling an all nighter at the very least.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Anything that does not involve going back to my apartment for awhile so if I could possibly borrow a pair of pants, I’ll get out of your hair and let you spend the rest of your evening relaxing.”

She really just wanted to go back to sleep but that didn’t seem like it was happening so she figured she would go down to the library or something to kill some time. Her mother was impatient so she didn’t think that she would wait around for long before giving up and leaving.

“Sure, you can borrow whatever clothes you need,” Laura looked at Carmilla’s hair and bit her lip to hold back a giggle, “I think you may need a hairbrush too.”

“What are you talking about- Oh my god,” Carmilla said as she turned and caught sight of herself in the floor length mirror Laura had in the living room. She vaguely remembered trying to put her hair up in a bun this morning before falling asleep but it looks like she did a truly terrible job or she had slept very fitfully and messed it all up.

Or both.

Carmilla liked to think she pulled off the messy bun look pretty well but that is not what was going on right now. It was messy and it was a bun- sort of- but there was no way this was cute.

And of course she was sitting next to the girl that she was maybe sort of becoming interested in.

Her mother did have a knack for ruining things, that’s for sure.

“So here’s an idea,” Laura started, catching Carmilla’s attention, “you are always letting me use your balcony so how about I use this as an opportunity to return the favor? How about you take a shower and change clothes and then maybe we could just watch movies or something?”

Carmilla was silent for just a half a second too long so Laura started trying to backtrack, “Only if you want to, of course! If not you are still welcome to shower and whatever before heading out if you really want to. I just thought maybe, since you were clearly not planning on doing anything this afternoon that you wouldn’t want to leave so…”

“Relax, cupcake. It’s fine. I’ll stay. Now, where is the bathroom because this mess,” Carmilla pointed to her hair, “is not going to fix itself.”

**Author's Note:**

> I should not be allowed to look up AU Prompts on tumblr.


End file.
